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The Greater Germanic Reich (German: Großgermanisches Reich), fully styled the Greater Germanic Reich of the German Nation (German: Großgermanisches Reich Deutscher Nation) is the official state name of the political entity that Nazi Germany tried to establish in Europe during World War II.[1] Albert Speer stated in his memoirs that Hitler also referred to the envisioned state as the Teutonic Reich of the German Nation.[2]

This Pan-Germanic empire was expected to absorb practically all of Germanic Europe into a greatly expanded Reich, initially including the Netherlands, at least the Flemish parts of Belgium and France, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Iceland,[3] and at least the German-speaking parts of Switzerland as well as the already enlarged Germany itself.[4] The sole exception to this rule was England and its British Empire which was never projected as being reduced to a German province, but to instead become an allied sea-faring partner of the Germans.[5]

In addition its western frontiers with France were to be reverted to those of the earlier Holy Roman Empire, which would have meant the complete annexation of all of Wallonia, French Switzerland, and large areas of northern and eastern France.[6] Massive territorial expansion into Eastern Europe under German leadership was also to take place, in which the peoples of the Germanic countries were to be encouraged as settlers (see Lebensraum).

Ideological background

Nazi racial ideology regarded the Germanic peoples of Europe as belonging to a racially superior Nordic subset of a supposed Aryan race, who were regarded as the only true culture-bearers of civilized society.[7] Part of German dictator Adolf Hitler's methods to ensure the present and future supremacy of the Aryan race (which was, according to Hitler, "gradually approaching extinction"[8]) was to do away with what he described as the "small state rubbish" (kleinstaatengerümpel, see also kleinstaaterei) in Europe in order to unite all these Nordic countries into one unified nation.[9]

It was the continent which brought civilization to Great Britain and in turn enabled her to colonize large areas in the rest of the world. America is unthinkable without Europe. Why would we not have the necessary power to become one of the world’s centres of attraction? A hundred-and-twenty million people of Germanic origin – if they have consolidated their position this will be a power against which no-one in the world could stand up to. The countries which form the Germanic world have only to gain from this. I can see that in my own case. My birth country is one of the most beautiful regions in the Reich, but what could it do if were left to its own devices? There is no possibility to develop one’s talents in countries like Austria or Saxony, Denmark or Switzerland. There is no foundation. That is why it is fortunate that potential new spaces are again opened for the Germanic peoples.

— Adolf Hitler, [10]

Hitler's concept of "Germanic" did not only refer to a linguistic group, but also to the superior "Germanic blood" that he wanted to salvage from the control of the enemies of the Aryan race:

Wherever Germanic blood is to be found anywhere in the world, we will take what is good to ourselves. With what the others have left they will be unable to oppose the Germanic empire.[11]

Thus, individuals of seemingly non-Germanic nationality such as French, Polish, Walloon, Czech and so on might actually possess valuable Germanic blood, and had to be made concious of this fact through the process of Germanization (the term used by the Nazis for this process was Umvolknung, "restoration to the race").[11] If these "missing" Germanic elements could not be recovered, they had to be destroyed to deny the enemy of using this superior blood against the Aryan race.[11]

Despite according the Germanic peoples a racially superior status alongside the Germans themselves in an anticipated post-war racio-political order, the Nazis did not consider granting the subject populations of these countries any national rights of their own.[7] The other Germanic countries were seen as mere extensions of Germany itself rather than individual units in any way, and the Germans were unequivocably intended to be the empire's most powerful and leading component.[7]

Although Hitler himself and Heinrich Himmler's SS advocated for a Pan-Germanic Empire, the objective was not universally held in the Nazi regime.[12] Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels and the Reich Foreign Ministry under Joachim von Ribbentrop inclined more towards an idea of a continental bloc under German rule, as represented by the Anti-Comintern Pact and the earlier Mitteleuropa concept.

On April 9, 1940 as Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in Operation Weserübung, Hitler stated:

Just as the Bismarck Empire arose from the year 1866, so too will the Greater Germanic Empire arise from this day.[13]

Holy Roman Empire

Further information: German occupation of France during World War II, Atlantic Wall, and SS State of Burgundy
Western Europe in the time of Charles V (1525). The Holy Roman Empire is marked by the red borders.

The chosen name was a deliberate reference to the Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation) that existed in mediaeval times, known as the First Reich in Nazi historiography.[14] Even before the war, Hitler had dreamed of reversing the Peace of Westphalia, which had given the territories of the Empire almost complete sovereignty.[13] On November 17, 1939, Goebbels wrote in his diary that the "total liquidation" of this historic treaty was the "great goal" of the Nazi regime.[13]

After the German victory over France, the regime took the initial steps for the "restitution" of the Holy Roman Empire's western border from the time of Charles V. The Reich Interior Ministry produced an initial memo for the planned annexation of a strip of eastern France from the mouth of the Somme to Lake Geneva already in June 1940,[15] and on July 10, 1940 Himmler toured the region to inspect its Germanization potential.[13] According to documents produced in December 1940, the annexed territory would consist of nine French departments, and the Germanization action would require the settlement of a million Germans of "peasant families".[13] Himmler decided that South Tyrolean emigrants would be used as settlers, and the towns of the region would receive South Tyrolean place-names such as Bozen, Brixen, Meran, and so on.[16] By 1942 Hitler had, however, decided that the South Tyroleans would be instead used to settle the Crimea, and Himmler regretfully noted "For Burgundy, we will just have to find another [Germanic] ethnic group."[17]

Hitler claimed French territory even beyond the historical border of the Holy Roman Empire. He stated that in order to ensure German hegemony on the continent, Germany must "also retain military strong points on what was formerly the French Atlantic coast" and emphasized that "that nothing on earth would persuade us to abandon such safe positions as those on the Channel coast, captured during the campaign in France and consolidated by the Organisation Todt."[18] Several major French cities along the coast were given the designation Festung ("fortress") by Hitler, such as Le Havre, Brest and St. Nazaire,[19] which suggests that they were to remain under permanent post-war German administration.

Establishment strategy

The establishment of the Greater Germanic Reich was to follow the model of the Austrian Anschluss of 1938, just on a greater scale.[20] Goebbels emphasized in April 1940 that the annexed Germanic countries would have to undergo a similar "national revolution" as Germany herself did after the Machtergreifung, with a rapid enforced social and political "co-ordination" in accordance with Nazi principles and ideology (Gleichschaltung).[20]

The ultimate goal of the Gleichschaltung policy pursued in occupied Europe was to destroy the very concepts of individual states and nationalities, just as the concept of a separate Austrian state and national identity was repressed after the Anschluss through the establishment of new state and party districts.[21] It is for this reason the Nazi occupiers had no interest in transferring real power to the various far-right nationalistic movements present in the occupied countries (such as Nasjonal Samling, the NSB, etc.) except for temporary reasons of Realpolitik, and instead actively supported radical collaborators who favored Pan-Germanic unity (i.e. total integration to Germany) over provincial nationalism (for example DeVlag).[22]

The agent used in stifling the local extreme nationalist elements was the Germanic SS, which initially merely consisted of local respective branches of the Allgemeine-SS in Belgium, Netherlands and Norway.[23] These groups were at first under the authority of their respective pro-Nazi national commanders (Quisling, Mussert and De Clercq), and were intended to function within their own national territories only.[23] During the course of 1942, however, the Germanic SS was further transformed into a tool used by Himmler against influence of the less extreme collaborating parties and their SA-style organizations, such as the Hird in Norway and the Weerbaarheidsafdeling in the Netherlands.[23][24] To emphasize their pan-Germanic ideology, the Norges SS was now renamed the Germanske SS Norge, the Nederlandsche SS the Germaansche SS in Nederland and the Algemeene-SS Vlaanderen the Germaansche SS in Vlaanderen, and the men of these groups no longer swore allegiance to their respective national leaders, but to the "Germanic Führer", Adolf Hitler.[23][24] In the post-war Germanic Empire, these men were to form the new leadership cadre of their respective national territories.[25]

The Swastika Flag was to be used as a symbol to represent not only the National Socialist movement, but also the unity of the Nordic-Germanic peoples into a single state.[26] Using the Unification of Germany as an analogy, it was held that since the flag of the Kingdom of Prussia could not have been imposed on the other German states that would together form the new German Empire of 1871, so too could the German national flag (Imperial tricolour) not be imposed on the other Germanic countries of Europe.[26]

Low countries

Further information: Reichskommissariat Niederlande, Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France, and German occupation of Luxembourg in World War II

For him [Hitler] it is only natural that Belgium, with its Germanic provinces of Flanders and Brabant, should become German Reichsgaue [Nazi provinces]. The Netherlands will also not be allowed its own political life, in spite of what Anton Mussert, the leader of the Dutch NS, may feel about it.

— Joseph Goebbels, [citation needed]

The German plans of annexation were more advanced for the Low Countries than for the Nordic states, due in part because of their closer geographical proximity as well as cultural and ethnic ties to Germany. Luxembourg and Belgium were both formally annexed into the Nazi state during World War II, in 1942 and 1944 respectively, the latter as the new Reichsgaue of Flandern and Wallonien (the proposed third one, Brabant, wasn't implemented in this arrangement) and a Brussels District. Hitler stated already in 1940 that he "no longer considers the Netherlands a foreign country", while repeating his intention on April 5 and May 30, 1942 that the Low Countries would be included whole into the Reich, at which point the Greater German Reich would be reformed into the Greater Germanic Reich to signify this change.[citation needed]

German plans for the Netherlands suggested its break-up into five new Gaue or gewesten (historical Dutch term for a type of sub-national polity), or its transformation into either a Gau Westland or even a Gau Holland, as long as the Wilhelmus (the Dutch national anthem) and similar patriotic symbols were to be forbidden.[27] Hanns Rauter, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Netherlands, hoped to become the Gauleiter of this new province on Germany's western periphery. His superior officer Himmler even contemplated resettling the entire Dutch population, some 8 million people in total at the time, to agricultural lands in the Vistula and Bug River valleys of German-occupied Poland as the most efficient way of facilitating their immediate Germanization.[28] In this eventuality he further hoped to establish an SS Province of Holland in vacated Dutch territory, and to distribute all confiscated Dutch property and real estate among reliable SS-men.[29] At the mouth of the Rhine river Rotterdam, which had actually been largely destroyed in the course of the 1940 invasion was to be rebuilt as the most important port-city in the Germanic area.[30]

The position in the future empire of the Frisians, another Germanic people, was discussed on 5 April 1942 in one of Hitler’s many wartime dinner-conversations.[10] Himmler commented that there was ostensibly no real sense of community between the different indigenous ethnic groups in the Netherlands. He then stated that the Dutch Frisians in particular seemed to hold no affection for being part of a nation-state based on the Dutch national identity, and felt a much greater sense of kinship with their German Frisian brethren across the Ems River in East Frisia, a sentiment Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel agreed with.[10] Hitler determined that the best course of action in that case would be to unite the two Frisian regions on both sides of the border into a single province, and would at a later point in time further discuss the topic with Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the governor of the German regime in the Netherlands.[10]

Hitler considered Wallonia to be "in reality German lands" (although Himmler initially protested against the inclusion of 'racially inferior' French and Walloon volunteers in the Waffen-SS) which were gradually detached from the Germanic territories by the French Romanization of the Walloons, and that Germany thus had "every right" to take these back.[6] Before the decision was made to include Wallonia in its entirety, several smaller areas straddling the traditional Germanic-Romance language border in Western Europe were already considered for inclusion. These included the small Lëtzebuergesh-speaking area centred around Arlon,[31] as well as the Low Dietsch-speaking region west of Eupen (the so-called Platdietse Streek) around the city of Limbourg, historical capital of the Duchy of Limburg.[32]

Nordic countries

Further information: Reichskommissariat Norwegen, Occupation of Denmark, Sweden during World War II, and Military history of Finland during World War II

After their invasion in Operation Weserübung, Hitler vowed that he would never again leave Norway,[30] and favored annexing Denmark as a German province even more due to its small size and relative closeness to Germany,[33] possibly under the name Gau Nordmark.[34] Himmler's hopes were an expansion of the project so that Iceland would also be included among the group of Germanic countries which would have to be gradually incorporated into the Reich.[3] He was also among the group of more esoteric Nazis who believed either Iceland or Greenland to be the mystical land of Thule, a purported original homeland of the ancient Aryan race.[35]

The erection of a new German metropolis (with 300.000 inhabitants) called Neu Drontheim next to the Norwegian city of Trondheim was prepared for.[30] Along with the construction of a major naval base that was expected to become Germany's largest one in all of Europe, this planned city was to become the new regional capital for a Germanized Scandinavia.[36]

Sweden's future subordination into the Nazi 'New Order' was considered by the regime.[37] Himmler stated that the Swedes were the "epitome of the Nordic spirit and the Nordic man", and looked forward to incorporating central and southern Sweden to the Germanic Empire.[37] Northern Sweden, with its Finnish minority, along with the Norwegian port of Kirkenes Himmler offered to Finland, although this suggestion was rejected by Finnish Foreign Minister Witting.[38][39] Felix Kersten, Himmler's personal masseur, claimed that Himmler had expressed regret that Germany had not occupied Sweden during Operation Weserübung, but was certain that this error was to be rectified after the war.[40] In 1940, Hermann Göring suggested that Sweden's future position in the Reich was similar to that of Bavaria in the German Empire.[37] The ethnically Swedish Åland Islands, which were awarded to Finland by the League of Nations in 1921, were likely to join Sweden in the Germanic Empire. In the spring of 1941, the German military attaché in Helsinki reported to his Swedish counterpart that Germany would need transit rights through Sweden for the imminent invasion of the Soviet Union, and in the case of finding her cooperative would permit the Swedish annexation of the islands.[41]

Despite the majority of its people being of Finno-Ugric origin, Finland was given the status of being an "honorary Nordic nation" (from a Nazi racialist perspective, not a national one) by Hitler as reward for its military importance in the ongoing conflict against the Soviet Union.[42] The Swedish-speaking minority of the country, who in 1941 comprised 9.6% of the total population, were considered Nordic and were initially preferred over Finnish speakers in recruitment for the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS.[43] Finland's Nordic status did not mean however that it was intended to be absorbed into the Germanic Empire, but instead expected to become the guardian of Germany’s northern flank against the hostile remnants of a conquered USSR by attaining control over Karelian territory, occupied by the Finns in 1941.[42] Hitler also considered the Finnish and Karelian climates unsuitable for German colonization.[44] Even so the possibility of Finland's eventual inclusion as a federated state in the empire as a long-term objective was mulled over by Hitler in 1941, but by 1942 he seems to have abandoned this line of thinking.[44] According to Kersten, as Finland signed an armistice with the Soviet Union and broke off diplomatic relations with her former brother-in-arms Germany in September 1944, Himmler felt remorse for not eliminating the Finnish state, government and its "Masonic" leadership sooner, and transforming the country into a "National Socialist Finland with a Germanic outlook".[45]

Switzerland

Further information: Operation Tannenbaum

The same implicit hostility toward neutral nations such as Sweden was also held towards Switzerland. Goebbels noted in his diary on December 18, 1941 that "It would be a veritable insult to God if they [the neutrals] would not only survive this war unscathed while the major powers make such great sacrifices, but also profit from it. We will certainly make sure that this will not happen."[46]

The Swiss people were seen by Nazi ideologists as a mere off-shoot of the German nation, although one led astray by decadent Western ideals of democracy and materialism.[47] Hitler decried the Swiss as "a misbegotten branch of our Volk" and the Swiss state as "a pimple on the face of Europe" deeming them unsuitable for settling the territories that the Nazis expected to colonize in Eastern Europe.[48]

Himmler discussed plans with his subordinates to integrate at least the German-speaking parts of Switzerland completely with the rest of Germany, and had several persons in mind for the post of a Reichskommissar for the 're-union' of Switzerland with the German Reich (in analogy to the office that Josef Bürckel held after Austria's absorption into Germany during the Anschluss). Later this official was to subsequently become the new Reichsstatthalter of the area after completing its total assimilation.[4][49]

Operation Tannenbaum, a military offensive intended to occupy all of Switzerland, most likely in co-operation with Italy (which itself desired the Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland), was in the planning stages during 1940-1941. Its implementation was seriously considered by the German military after the armistice with France, but it was definitively shelved after the start of Operation Barbarossa had directed the attention of the Wehrmacht elsewhere.[50]

Northern Italy

Further information: Operational Zone of the Adriatic Littoral

Initially intending to use the Germans of South Tyrol as settlers for Generalplan Ost, the Italian surrender made it possible for Germany to occupy much of Italy, and re-arrange the provinces of Trentino, Belluno and Alto Adige into the military district Alpenvorland and the provinces of Friuli, Fiume, Pola, Gorizia, Trieste and Lubiana into the district Adriatisches Küstenland.[51] Both districts were to be eventually annexed into the Germanic Reich, in spite of Hitler's admiration and respect for the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.[51] Hitler had stated that the art of Northern Italy was "nothing but pure German",[52] and Nazi scholars viewed that the Romansh, Ladin and Friulian minorities of the two districts were racially, historically and culturally a part of the Germanic world.[53]

Further extension of the Germanic Reich's southern border was considered. According to Goebbels, Hitler had expressed that the border should extend to those of the region of Veneto.[51] Veneto was to be included into the Reich in an "autonomous form", and to benefit from the post-war influx of German tourists.[51]

Role of Britain in the Germanic order

Global territorial possessions of the British Empire in 1897.
Further information: Operation Sea Lion

The one country that wasn’t included in the Pan-Germanic unification aim was the United Kingdom,[54] in spite of its near-universal acceptance by the Nazi government as being part of the Germanic world.[55] Leading Nordic ideologist Hans F. K. Günther theorized that the Anglo-Saxons had been more successful than the Germans in maintaining racial purity, thanks to Britain's island nature, with interbreeding between the Germanic conquerors and the subjugated Celtic nations being only marginal in effect.[56] Furthermore, the coastal and island areas of Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and Wales had received additional Nordic blood through Norse raids and colonization during the Viking Age, and the Anglo-Saxons of Eastern and Northern England had been under Danish rule in the 9th and 10th centuries.[56] Günther referred to this historical process as Aufnordung ("additional nordification"), which finally culminated in the Norman conquest of England in 1066.[56] Britain was thus a nation created by struggle and the survival of the fittest among the various Aryan peoples of the isles, and was able to pursue global conquest and empire-building because of its superior racial heredity born through this development.[57]

Hitler professed an admiration for the imperial might of the British Empire in Zweites Buch as proof of the racial superiority of the Aryan race,[58] hoping that Germany would emulate British "ruthlessness" and "absence of moral scruples" in establishing its own colonial empire in Eastern Europe.[59] One of his primary foreign policy aims throughout the 1930s was to establish a military alliance with both the English (Hitler conflated England with the United Kingdom in his writings and speeches) as well as the Italians to neutralize France as a strategic threat to German security for eastward expansion. In this arrangement the two "kindred folks" were to divide the world between each other with Germany dominating continental Europe, while England would reign supreme over the world’s oceans.

When it became apparent to the Nazi leadership that the United Kingdom was not interested in a military alliance, anti-British policies were adopted to ensure the attainment of Germany’s war aims. Even during the war however, hope remained that Britain would in time yet become a reliable German ally.[60] Hitler preferred to see the British Empire preserved as a world power, because its break-up would benefit other countries far more than it would Germany, particularly the United States and Japan.[60] In fact, Hitler's strategy during 1935-1937 for winning Britain over was based on a German guarantee of defense of the British Empire.[61] After the war, Ribbentrop testified that in 1935 Hitler had promised to deliver twelve German divisions to the disposal of Britain for maintaining the integrity of her colonial possessions.[62]

The continued military actions against Britain after the fall of France had the strategic goal of making Britain 'see the light' and conduct an armstice with the Axis powers, with July 1, 1940 being named by the Germans as the "probable date" for the cessation of hostilities.[63] On May 21, 1940, Franz Halder, the head of the Army General Staff, after a consultation with Hitler concerning the aims envisaged by the Führer during the present war, wrote in his diary: "We are seeking contact with Britain on the basis of partitioning the world".[64]

One of Hitler's sub-goals for the invasion of Russia was to win over Britain to the German side. He believed that after the military collapse of the USSR, "within a few weeks" Britain would be forced either into a surrender or else come to join Germany as a "junior partner" in the Axis.[65] Britain's role in this alliance was reserved to support German naval and aerial military actions against the USA in a fight for world supremacy conducted from the Axis power bases of Europe, Africa and the Atlantic.[66] On August 8, 1941, Hitler stated that he looked forward to the eventual day when "England and Germany [march] together against America" and on January 7, 1942 he daydreamed that it was "not impossible" for Britain to quit the war and join the Axis side, leading to a situation where "it will be a German-British army that will chase the Americans from Iceland".[67] Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg hoped that after the victorious conclusion of the war against the USSR, Englishmen, along with other Germanic nationalities, would join the German settlers in colonizing the conquered eastern territories.[11]

From a historial perspective Britain’s situation was likened to that which the Austrian Empire found itself in after it was defeated by the Kingdom of Prussia in the Battle of Königgratz in 1866.[60] As Austria was thereafter formally excluded from German affairs, so too would Britain be excluded from continental affairs in the event of a German victory. Yet afterwards, Austria-Hungary became a loyal ally of the German Empire in the pre-WWI power alignments in Europe, and it was hoped that Britain would come to fulfill this same role.[60]

Channel Islands

Further information: Occupation of the Channel Islands

The British Channel Islands were to be permanently integrated into the Germanic Empire.[68] On July 22, 1940, Hitler stated that after the war, the islands were to be given to the control of Robert Ley's German Labour Front, and transferred into Strength Through Joy holiday resorts.[69] Nazi scholar Karl Heinz Pfeffer toured the islands in 1941, and recommended that the German occupiers should appeal to the islanders' Norman heritage and treat the islands as "Germanic micro-states", whose union with Britain was only an accident of history.[70] He likened the preferred policy concerning the islands similar to the one pursued by the British in Malta, where the Maltese language had been "artificially" supported against the Italian language.[70]

Ireland

Further information: Operation Green (Ireland)

A Military operation plan for the invasion of Ireland in support of Operation Sea Lion was drawn up by the Germans in August 1940. Occupied Ireland was to be ruled along with Britain in a temporary administrative system divided into six military-economic commands, with one of the headquarters being situated in Dublin.[71] Ireland's future position in the New Order is unclear, but it is known that Hitler would have reunited Ulster with the Irish state.[72]

Planned Participation in Colonization of Eastern Europe

Further information: Generalplan Ost

Despite the desired aim of Germanic unification, the primary goal of Nazi Germany’s territorial expansionism was to acquire sufficient Lebensraum in Eastern Europe for the Aryan race through the extermination of the indigenous Slavic and Baltic inhabitants.[73] The objective in this aim was so that Germany would be able to transform itself into a complete economic autarky, the end-result of which would be a state of continent-wide German hegemony over Europe. This was to be accomplished by expanding the German population through the enlargement of the territorial base of the German state.[74]

[On German colonization of Russia] As for the two or three million men whom we need to accomplish this task, we will find them more quickly than we think. They will come from Germany, Scandinavia, the Western countries [The Low Countries and the United Kingdom], and America. I shall no longer be here to see all that, but in twenty years the Ukraine will already be a home for twenty million inhabitants besides the natives.

— Adolf Hitler, [75]

Because of their perceived racial worth, much of the Nazi leadership was enthusiastic at the prospect of recruiting people from the Germanic countries to additionally settle these territories after the Slavic inhabitants would have been exterminated or driven out.[76] The racial planners were partly motivated in this because studies indicated that Germany would likely not be able to recruit enough colonial settlers for the eastern territories from its own country and other Germanic groups would therefore be required.[73] Forcing these peoples to become settlers would also have the dual effect of germanizing them much more effectively if they did not form cohesive national units, thereby making the empire more homogenous in the long term.

Later development

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler's preoccupation with the Pan-Germanic plan began to fade, although the idea was never abandoned. As the foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS were increasingly of non-Germanic origin, especially after the Battle of Stalingrad, among the organization's leadership (e.g. Felix Steiner) the proposition for a Greater Germanic Empire gave way to a concept of a European union of self-governing states, unified by German hegemony and the common enemy of Bolshevism.[77] The Waffen-SS was to be the eventual nucleus of a common European army, where each state would be represented by a national contingent.[77] Himmler himself, however, gave no concession to these views, and held on to his Pan-Germanic vision in a speech given on April 1943 to the officers of SS divisions LSAH, Das Reich and Totenkopf:

We do not expect you to renounce your nation. ... We do not expect you to become German out of opportunism. We do expect you to subordinate your national ideal to a greater racial and historical ideal, to the Germanic Reich.[77]

See also

References

  1. ^ Elvert 1999, p. 325.
  2. ^ Speer 1970, p. 260.
  3. ^ a b Rothwell 2005, p. 37.
  4. ^ a b Rich 1974, pp. 401-402.
  5. ^ Strobl 2000, pp. 202-208.
  6. ^ a b Williams 2005, p. 209.
  7. ^ a b c Bohn 1997, p. 7.
  8. ^ Fest 1973, p. 210.
  9. ^ Fink 1985, pp. 27, 152.
  10. ^ a b c d Hitler 2000, p. 306.
  11. ^ a b c d Fest 1973, p. 685.
  12. ^ Lipgens 1985, p. 41.
  13. ^ a b c d e Sager & Winkler 2007, p. 74.
  14. ^ Hattstein 2006, p. 321.
  15. ^ Schöttler 2003, pp 83-131.
  16. ^ Steininger 2003, p. 67.
  17. ^ Rich 1974, p. 384.
  18. ^ Rich 1974, p. 198.
  19. ^ Zaloga 2007, p. 10.
  20. ^ a b Welch 1983, p. 145.
  21. ^ Rich 1974, pp. 24-25, 140.
  22. ^ See e.g. Warmbrunn 1963, pp. 91-93.
  23. ^ a b c d Bramstedt 2003, pp. 92-93.
  24. ^ a b Kroener, Müller & Umbreit 2003, pp. 122-123.
  25. ^ Morgan 2003, p. 182.
  26. ^ a b Rich 1974, p. 26.
  27. ^ de Jong 1969, p. 97.
  28. ^ Waller 2002, p. 20.
  29. ^ Kersten 1947, pp. 84-85.
  30. ^ a b c Fest 1973, p. 689.
  31. ^ Gildea, Wieviorka & Warring 2006, p. 130.
  32. ^ Hamacher, Hertz & Keenan 1989, p. 444.
  33. ^ Rothwell 2005, p. 32.
  34. ^ Kieler 2007, p. 43.
  35. ^ Janssens 2005, p. 205.
  36. ^ Weinberg 2006, pp. 26-27.
  37. ^ a b c Leitz 2000, p. 52.
  38. ^ Ackermann 1970, p. 191.
  39. ^ Kersten 1957, p. 143.
  40. ^ Rich 1974, p. 500.
  41. ^ Griffiths 2004, pp. 180-181.
  42. ^ a b Rich 1974, p. 401.
  43. ^ Nieme, Jarto; Pipes, Jason. "Finnish Volunteers in the Wehrmacht in WWII". Feldgrau. Retrieved 15 October 2010.
  44. ^ a b Boog 2001, p. 922.
  45. ^ Kersten 1947, pp. 131, 247.
  46. ^ Urner 2002, p. x.
  47. ^ Halbrook 1998, pp. 24-25.
  48. ^ Hitler 2000.
  49. ^ Fink 1985, pp. 71-72.
  50. ^ Halbrook 1998, p. 151.
  51. ^ a b c d Petacco 2005, p. 50.
  52. ^ Rich 1974, p. 317.
  53. ^ Wedekind 2006, pp. 113, 122-123.
  54. ^ Rich 1974, p. 398.
  55. ^ Strobl 2000, pp. 36-60.
  56. ^ a b c Strobl 2000, p. 84.
  57. ^ Strobl 2000, p. 85.
  58. ^ Hitler 2003.
  59. ^ Strobl 2000, p. 61.
  60. ^ a b c d Rich 1974, p. 396.
  61. ^ Nicosia 2000, p. 73.
  62. ^ Nicosia 2000, p. 74.
  63. ^ Hildebrand 1973, p. 99.
  64. ^ Hildebrand 1973, p. 96.
  65. ^ Hildebrand 1973, p. 105.
  66. ^ Hildebrand 1973, pp. 100-105.
  67. ^ Pinkus 2005, p. 259.
  68. ^ Rich 1974, p. 421.
  69. ^ Sanders 2005, p. xxiv.
  70. ^ a b Sanders 2005, p. 188.
  71. ^ Rich 1974, p. 397.
  72. ^ Weinberg 2006, p. 35.
  73. ^ a b Madajczyk.
  74. ^ Rich 1974, p. 331.
  75. ^ Rich 1974, p. 329.
  76. ^ Poprzeczny 2004, p. 181.
  77. ^ a b c Stein 1984, pp. 145-148.
Bibliography

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